The complete or partial detachment of ligaments, tendons, and/or other soft tissues from their associated bones within the body are relatively commonplace injuries, particularly among athletes. Such injuries are generally the result of excessive stresses being placed on these tissues. By way of example, tissue detachment may occur as the result of an accident such as a fall, over-exertion during a work-related activity, during the course of an athletic event, or in any one of many other situations and/or activities.
In the case of a partial detachment, the injury will frequently heal itself, if given sufficient time and if care is taken not to expose the injury to further undue stress. In the case of complete detachment, however, surgery may be needed to re-attach the soft tissue to its associated bone or bones. Numerous devices are currently available to re-attach soft tissue to bone. Examples of such currently-available devices include screws, staples, suture anchors, and tacks.
Tissue may be attached to bone during traditional open surgery or during minimally invasive, e.g., arthroscopic, surgical procedures. Minimally invasive surgical procedures are usually preferred over open surgery since they are less invasive, are less likely to cause patient trauma, and can reduce patient recovery time. In a minimally invasive surgical procedure, the surgeon performs diagnostic and therapeutic procedures at the surgical site through one or more small incisions. Reducing the size and number of incisions is desirable because it can reduce patient trauma and recovery time. However, in surgical procedures involving tissue reattachment, the size of the incision can be undesirably large in order to deliver a fastener of adequate size and strength to secure tissue. In addition, applying multiple fasteners can be time consuming and cumbersome because the device delivering the fasteners may need to be removed from a patient after delivery of each fastener for loading of a new fastener to be delivered.
Accordingly, there remains a need for improved surgical fasteners and methods and devices for deploying a surgical fastener.